The Red River Promenaders
Square Dance (Riviera Records R0053)

An irresistible title if ever I saw one, at the irresistible price of nine cents (plus tax!), Square Dance is ultimately more square than dance, and The Red River Promenaders more likely to lull you to sleep than sweep you up for a spin around the barnfloor.

Hearkening back to the days when people cared if someone got murdered, Square Dance was, I imagine, intended to fill the empty spot on stage when there was no money to pay a real band, and all you had was a barn, some rancid moonshine, and electricity provided by a trained bear peddling a bicycle, dreaming his unknowable trained-bear dreams, wondering where all the other bears are, and why he is wearing a red vest in summer.

I'm guessing Square Dance was never used for make-out music, unless it was making out while pretending to be practicing square dancing. Currently, the only practical use for such an album is for utter mockery, or making 12 year-olds miserable in gym class, or best of all, if one of the Red River Promenaders is still alive somewhere, desperately clinging to life, spinning Square Dance over and over, and pissing himself for the third time this morning.

Now that you hate me, on to the music itself. Square dancing music, I'm discovering, is just an excuse for a redneck to play the violin without being laughed at. Because it cannot possibly be considered good music. For instance, Side 1, Track 1, "Hinkey Dinkey Parley Vous," is a droning, irritating nursery rhyme peppered with simple square dance calls (mostly "round and round, round and round"), and lasts, God, something like 90 minutes (or so it seems).

"Red River Girl" sounds no different, except there's no attempt at lyrics, just a lot of ordering people around the dance floor, "do this, do that," etc. "Promenade" at least seems a lot more complex, with all kinds of bowing and promenading, and side gents crossing over, honoring partners, bowing to their ladies, etc. But thankfully despite the complexity, it only lasts like 2 minutes.

Then it's onto "Bird in the Cage (In and Out)" which I mistakenly assumed was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the timeless Goldie Hawn/Mel Gibson comedy, or a deeply-felt homage to the secret life of a homosexual Texan boy. Instead, it's a square dancing song! But cryptic lyrics like "birdie fly out and the crow fly in" could very well have any number of interpretations, which I will leave to the scholars. By the end of Side A, with "Round and Round Ho Down," you pretty much just want it all to stop.

Side B sports such chart-toppers as "Opposite Jitterbug," "Darling Nellie Grey," and "Caballero," all of which sound exactly alike and are only funny in that they last way too long, and I think we all get the joke already. OK, OK, you're a vintage square dance band. Hysterical.

The final song, "Four Around," at least dispenses with the hog-calling and lets the listener fantasize about "bird in the caging" their way to first place, winning the corncob rocking chair or the corncob banjo and banjo lessons. "Four Around" completes the LP with a satisfying countrified flourish designed to rouse the make-out party to extemporaneous "Yeehaa's" and "Wahoo's" (in addition to the usual clumsy fondling and groping … wait a minute, didn't I just say this wasn't a make-out album???).

If you're going to plunk down your hard-earned nine cents, you might look elsewhere. Unless, of course, you're on your way to a degree from the University of Southern Oklahoma, or as we in "the biz" like to call it, "the Harvard of square dancing" – in which case, your nine cents will be well spent. Wahoo!

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Review by Crimedog